


Open your Body

by 401



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Friendship/Love, Internalized Homophobia, Men Crying, Multi, One Night Stands, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 18:20:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5427047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/401/pseuds/401
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sergeant James Barnes cannot come to terms with his own conflicted sexuality. And it hurts like hell</p>
            </blockquote>





	Open your Body

**Author's Note:**

> The lyrics at the beginning are from 'Broken Crown' by Mumford and Sons. Enjoy

_The pull on my flesh was just too strong,_

_It stifled the choice and the air in my lungs._

_Better not to breathe than to breathe a lie._

_Cause’ when I open my body, I breathe a lie._

 

 

“Mm…Sergeant _Barnes,_ ” Delilah stretched, running her hand through her curtain of messy blonde curls and putting a tone of mock disappointment and shock in her voice.

“You gonna’ leave me so soon, James?”

Bucky smiled weakly and lay back down next to Delilah in the bed, sighing into the perfume-smelling pillow and letting his finger’s run deftly up the girl’s bare spine where she was lying on her front, kicking her legs a little.

Delilah Morgan. She was sweetheart material with no word of denial. She was younger than Bucky, short (short and sweet) with a waist that Bucky could near enough get his hands around and hips that he most certainly could not. She was almost too blonde, her loose, bouncing curls hung distractingly about her shoulders when they were loose and sat in a soft pin-do in the daytime.

 _“No wonder her daddy had that big-ass shotgun,”_ Steve had joked when Bucky had mentioned her.

It was true; there was no shortage of fellas at Delilah’s door. Bucky did not know how many got let in, but he guessed it was more than he wanted it to be so he put the thought out of his mind.

This night and this meeting had a purpose: pure and utter distraction.

“D’you think I’m like all the other girls, James?” Delilah drawled. The evening’s whiskey and coke had hit her much harder than it had Bucky. He couldn’t help but smile at the clumsy wobble of the blonde’s head. She was adorable, if little else. Bucky felt a little guilty for a moment, but shortly remembered how ‘not-so-innocent’ she’s been minutes before.

“Jjjjamess,” She drew out her voice, matching the longitude with a red-nailed finger down Bucky’s bare chest.

The soldier breathed a soft moan and thought.

“Nope,” Bucky answered, “You’re _much_ prettier.”

Delilah hiccupped a laugh, muttered something that sounded like “bastard” and let her head lull forward against the pillows. Bucky smiled in relief at his temporary sleeping partner’s slumber. He stared at the ceiling in the dark with aching muscles and comfortably drunken fuzziness.

 

_You did well. You actually enjoyed it this time. You can live like this._

Bucky tried to relax at the self-given reassurance. This time _had_ been better. He had been able to let go, to lose himself the way he knew he was supposed to. The whiskey had helped, clouded him enough that the lines between ‘desire’ and ‘put up with’ had blurred to a point where he could ignore them.

 

_But it would have been better with Steve._

 

Bucky shoved the thought from his head but did not attempt to deny it. It was an obvious reality that made Bucky feel like he was chasing his tail, running in circles to chase an imposed ideal of himself that he could not fully comprehend.

But he was not as strong as Steve. Steve could put up with the abuse and he was so much less sensitive, so much more headstrong. He could smile through the shouts of “queer” and the teasing whistles from the local guys. Steve was stubborn enough to cope. Hell, Bucky would lose his head when they did that to Steve, it hurt him.

He’d be a mess if it was him on the receiving end, so he kept his feelings quiet. He kept his eyes low, denied and refuted. He put himself through this routine of ‘self-conditioning’ like an athlete trains; the longer you push for, the less it will hurt. He tried not to think about how much he wanted to feel, how much he wanted pleasure that he didn’t feel like he needed to work to achieve. It was straight or nothing.

Bucky got to his feet and pulled on his slacks, pressing a kiss into the hair of his comatose date before dressing completely and leaving a note.

 

_Great night, D._

_Maybe next weekend?_

_You know where I am._

He sighed and paced out into the cold of Brooklyn at midnight.

 

His apartment was a minor walk from Delilah’s, past the chemist he picked Steve’s asthma stuff up from and sandwiched between a greengrocers and a barbers. It was pretty convenient. The cold was the only issue with the old brick building, it leeched in like a plague and hung around until spring.

Bucky let himself in quietly, hanging up his coat and tiptoeing to his room, sticking his head around the threshold of Steve’s door to check on him. The blond had his back to the door, curled into a tight wad of quilts to brace against the draughts that no amount of bunched up newspaper could seem to fix. Bucky smiled to himself at the image before continuing to his own room.

“Buck?”

Bucky winced. Steve would not sleep through anything.

“That you, Bucky?”

Bucky walked back on himself, into Steve’s room.

“Mm, it’s me,” He confirmed leaning against the doorframe, “You go back to sleep, Stevie.”

Steve turned to face Bucky with a look of suspicion and amusement on his face.

“Someone’s drunk,” Steve chuckled, crossing his arms around himself, half for effect, half to keep out the chill.

Bucky shook his head in blatant shitfaced denial earning a stern frown from Steve.

“Stevie?” Steve raised an eyebrow, “ _Really?_ ”

Bucky laughed nodded, owning his inebriation with a bowed head before looking back at Steve in the dark room.

“It’s really cold in here, Steve,” Bucky leaned his head against the doorframe to soothe the growing pounding.

“I’m gonna’ get you my cover, hold on.”

Steve shook his head in protest and gestured for Bucky to sit, smacking the mattress next to him. Bucky obeyed numbly, sitting next to the blond. Steve curled an arm around his waist and pulled him into the cocoon of quilts with him, burying his nose into the sergeant’s neck and closing his eyes against the warmth.

“You only get that drunk when you’re hurting,” Steve whispered, tightening his grip on the brunet’s torso, pulling him deeper into the hug.

Bucky nodded blindly, cursing silently as too-easy, hot tears ran down his cheeks and hit the pillow, pooling in his ear at the angle.

“You don’t need to tell me why,” Steve continued, “And I won’t tell anyone you cried.”

Bucky coughed a wet laugh and closed his eyes, absorbed by the warmth around him. Steve was like a star. He looked small, but somehow the light he gave out could reach Bucky no matter how far away he had let himself float. It warmed him from the inside out, let him grow.

Bucky wished the night had never happened. He wished the night would never end.

 

 

 

 


End file.
